Tips To Choosing a Dedicated Server: The Pros To Know

If you have a website you want to take to the next level, you might want to transition to a dedicated server to take advantage of a server to call your own. After all, as the name implies, this server won’t be shared with other websites – which means you’re free to tweak with it in ways that can benefit your website. This makes it quite a good prospect for both businesses and blogs, but then again there’s always the matter of actually choosing a dedicated server that you have to deal with. Just how exactly does this work?

What is a Dedicated Server?

It might be to-your-benefit to learn just what a dedicated server is – or at least, gain a refresher – before you avail one for your needs. To recall, a dedicated server is a kind of remote server that’s allocated for an application, an organization, or an individual. Dedicated servers are generally managed and hosted by either a managed service provider, a cloud provider, or a hosting provider. What makes dedicated servers appealing in a general sense is that they’re not shared with other applications, services, and customers and as such are exclusive to you.

This can provide quite a lot of perks, given that a dedicated server can provide to you the features regular servers can give – but this time, it’s dedicated entirely to your needs. Dedicated servers may have the capacity to host backup and storage services, and host other applications, depending on the ones you choose.

Dedicated Server: How to choose one for your needs

With the above in mind, it may help to better explore just what you should consider while choosing a dedicated server. Dedicated Server providers such as PhoenixNAP Hosting Solutions are capable of providing you with quite a ton of features your site may need, but you may also need a bit of a nudge with regards to the criteria you should have when choosing a dedicated server:

Do you really need a server that only you can use? As the name implies, a dedicated server really is a server that is exclusive to you. This means the entirety of the server’s RAM and CPU usage will be used by your site and your site alone. All the resources of the server will be allocated to you, which then ensures bandwidth usage spikes and bad scripts that are otherwise from bad websites won’t affect your site in a negative way. This option is best used by sites with a ton of built-in features, or even sites with heavy-duty resources such as large internal custom search engines, online stores, and even sites dedicated to otherwise large content offerings such as videos and graphics.

Do you need better and reinforced security and performance? When you choose a dedicated server for your site, your hosting provider essentially will be able to guarantee the best maximum uptime for your site. This is best if your website has a lot of traffic, as having dedicated servers will definitely give you more stability to work with, and as such would make your website more reliable when it comes to accessing data. Not only that, but you at least can make sure that you won’t be sharing any form of spyware or malware with malicious partners that are otherwise risky with shared hosting. As such, dedicated servers actually enhance security, which is important for services and sites that want a particular degree of protection, or if they handle transactions done over SSL or FTP.

Does your website require the flexibility? Dedicated servers allow you to control the degree of flexibility of the server, allowing you to fully customize it to your needs without having to worry about its effects on other websites. This means you can get your server to accommodate your particular software, disk space, RAM, and CPU needs. This is much better than shared hosting, as sharing a server with other sites will limit the kind of operating environment, software, and applications that are loaded in your server. Dedicated servers essentially allow you to get an environment that is suitable for your needs.

Do you need resources for a full server, without the hassle? If you need a full server but don’t have the resources or time to manage physical servers, dedicated hosting is for you. This is much lower in terms of costs as you’re relying on a separate company to manage the resources you’re demanding. The provider will be handling the costs of maintaining and building server equipment, which can then lessen the charges on your end but still provides the stability, security, and customizable offerings of a dedicated server.

The Bottomline: Dedicated Servers

If you’ve ever found yourself needing a dedicated server for your website, you’re likely going to find a lot of providers that claim to be the “one” you need. Thing is, unless you exactly are aware of what you need, finding the right dedicated server provider can be a bit challenging. With the above points in mind, always take into account the kind of information you want to store, features you want implemented, and your maintaining budget in order to get yourself matched with the right provider. Remember, dedicated servers have a lot of pros and advantages, but they are best utilized if you yourself are aware of its full capabilities.